But as he rounded the corner, he saw no child he recognised. Only a boy, one who looked very young, dressed in a tattered and overly large shirt with so many holes and dirty spots it looked fit for nothing but the waste-bin. The boy had very messy dark hair and clutched himself around the waist.

"What are you doing here?" Severus snapped out. The child jumped, nearly knocking his head on the underside of a shelf and sending Merlin-knew-how-many jars tumbling to the floor. Only a hasty jab of his wand and a muttered spell kept the disaster from happening. "Who are you?"

"'M'sorry, sir," the child lisped pitifully, his hands coming up over his head as he settled into a protective crouch. He's afraid of me, Severus thought, and somehow, the realisation produced fresh anger. As if he could do anything to harm the little brat.

"Stand up," Severus snapped again. "Arms down. What's your name, boy? Why are you making a mess of my stores?"

But as the child properly stood, still cringing, shoulders slumped, Severus discovered he had no need for a sniveling answer, not on the name front, at least. The jagged lightning scar etched into the boy's forehead could be no other.

"Harry Potter," he breathed. "Of course it would be you. Ruining my Saturday. Of course." The boy sniffled, and Severus's patience broke. Striding forward, he seized the child's arm and gave him a brisk shake. "Speak up, boy. Why are you here? Run away from your guardians somehow? They must be worried sick!"

He would have continued shouting, working himself into a proper froth, had the child not chanced to look up and give Severus a very fleeting glimpse of the massive, purpling bruise that covered one half of Potter's face.

"Potter?" his voice gentled, almost without him realising it. "Potter, what happened to your face?"

"Fell, sir," the boy mumbled, but there was a certain shiftiness in the emerald-green eyes (Lily's eyes) that gave away that that was not precisely true.

"Into a fist, perhaps," Severus snarked, but his heart wasn't in it. "How are you here, Potter?"

"Don't know, sir," the boy shrugged, shivering a little in that ridiculous get-up he wore. "Was in my cup-was in my room, sir, and wished I was somewhere else, and then..." Potter trailed off, clearly lost for words.

"You found yourself here," Severus finished. Potter nodded a bit. "Well, you can't spend all day in my storeroom," Severus sighed. "Come on, boy. Perhaps the Headmaster will know what to do with you and can send you back."

The child stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes widening before he could stop them.

"Go back, sir?" Potter murmured fearfully.

"Well, yes, Potter, children are not normally taken from their guardians without proper cause, and there are certain extenuating circumstances around your placement that the Headmaster can explain far better than I," Severus started to explain, but before he could finish, the boy had darted past him, down the corridor, hooked a left, and was out of sight.

Severus pinched his nose with two fingers and exhaled sharply. It was going to be one of those days.

"Come back here, Potter!" he heard the man yell behind him, even angrier than he'd sounded when he first found Harry in his storeroom, but Harry put on another burst of speed. He wasn't stupid. The scary man in black knew who he was, and that couldn't mean good things. It certainly never had before.

It's not like he'd meant to end up in a strange man's storage closet. He hadn't meant to end up anywhere! But Uncle was going to hurt him more as soon as he came back from work, and he already hurt quite enough, especially with the bruises on his face and his back, and so he'd ended up huddled in the middle of his cot, in the cupboard under the stairs, rocking back and forth and whispering how much he wanted to be somewhere safe, he just wanted a refuge.

And look at how that had turned up, ending up in a place that smelled rotten, worse than the rubbish bin, and a man who looked scarier than Uncle and Aunt combined. In only his night-shirt, because he'd been too frightened to change.

A flight of stairs loomed up, and Harry took it, his bare feet pounding against the dusty stones. He didn't know where it led, but anywhere had to be better than the darkness with the scary man, didn't it?

He swiftly revised that opinion when he saw another man step out of a room just ahead, back thankfully turned. This man had greasy hair and a pronounced hunch and was murmuring something vile-sounding to a rather scruffy cat twining around his ankles.

Sod that, Harry thought and desperately dived down a side corridor before the greasy-looking man could finish turning around. This one was dustier, and he desperately held in a sneeze. He had to get somewhere cleaner, somewhere his footprints in the dust wouldn't point to his location like a beacon.

The scary man's shouts had long since faded, and he heard nothing from the man with the cat, so Harry finally, gradually slowed down, his breathing still laboured and raspy, but manageable. Now he could take in more details about the strange, massive building he'd landed himself in. There were statues and suits of armour at nearly every corner, and so many portraits and tapestries, he couldn't count them. They must be a nightmare to clean, he thought with a weary snort. His legs ached, and his right elbow still stung from where he'd banged it on a statue three halls back, and he felt like he'd been running for miles. Maybe he had.

"Where am I?" Harry muttered aloud, feeling exhaustion crash over him like a tidal wave.

"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," a voice from nowhere said, in a brisk tone. Harry's head swiveled around, mouth gaping open, but found no one.

"Who said that?" he gasped.

"Up here," the voice said patiently. Harry's eyes finally lit upon a smiling woman in a very yellow dress in a picture frame. "Yes, that's right," the woman in the portrait said, smiling.

"But...people in pictures can't talk," Harry said, feeling rather stupid.

"They can at Hogwarts," the woman said, fixing her hair. "Because of the magic."

Harry's mouth fell further open, hearing the m-word so casually bandied about.

"You-don't say that!" he hissed frantically. "They-you'll get in trouble, it's for freaks only, you-you're not a freak," he bit his lip, cheeks flushing in shame. Certain that the woman in the portrait would know now.

But all she said, quite calmly, was, "And neither are you."

If it wasn't for the scary man in black's arrival just then, Harry didn't know what he would have said.